


Scales+Tail

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Whump, eventually, mermaid Mac, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-03-29 20:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19027681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: A massive green, fluked tail flicks into the air, and then whatever it is is diving fast. Jack leans over the side of the boat to see, because despite the tail color, he thinks he saw peach and gold somewhere in the depths. No way.





	1. Chapter 1

The ocean in front of Jack is calm and placid, only disturbed by the tiny ripples from the prow of his boat. He wishes the rest of his life was that simple. 

Jack isn’t sure what he’s doing. In LA, or in life, really. He misses Diane. He misses Texas. But he couldn’t bring himself to stay, not when the house was full of memories of Pops and Diane.  _ I’m trying, Darlin’. But I miss you. I need you to tell me what to do with Riley. I’m trying, but she’s already gotten into trouble here.  _

Riley’s currently interning at a local think tank, working in their tech division. She wants to go to CalTech, and the internship will look good on an application.  _ And it keeps her out of trouble.  _ He’s already had to convince the school not to press charges when Riley hacked the entire network, apparently just for kicks.  _ She’s a firecracker. She’s so smart, so enthusiastic. But I don’t know how to direct her.  _ If something doesn’t change, he’s afraid of losing her.  _ Diane could get her to open up. But I’m too abrasive, I feel like I’m pushing her away. _ Riley can’t be talked to like an insubordinate soldier.

He was really hoping to talk to Worthy about this. He’s got a grown son, in college now, that he raised by himself after the divorce. That’s why he quit the Deltas; and it’s why Jack barely saw him until he moved to LA.  _ And now I’m the one too busy to find time to see him, except sometimes on the weekends.  _

His job isn’t much to write home about. He was hoping to get a position with a private security firm one of his old Army buddies was starting, but when investments didn’t pan out, the company went under, and Jack’s working as a tile salesman for a local manufacturer. He’s gone all the time, and it’s been hard on all of them.

He knows Riley’s struggling. With the move, with the shabby little house that they’re renting (the only upside is that it actually has beachfront property), with the fact that Jack’s barely making enough money to keep them here, with losing her mom, most of all. It’s little wonder she’s been acting out. But he doesn’t know what to do about it. 

She needs friends, and he’s glad she’d got at least one at the Phoenix Foundation, where she’s interning. Jill Morgan is a forensic analyst, a CalTech grad herself, and Riley seems to be latching onto her as a mentor. 

Jack hears the boat engine start to splutter just as he passes the small point that almost totally cuts the area near his house off from the open ocean. “Oh hell no.” This is just his luck, the motor quits right here and now. He’s going to have to row back. Jack sighs and pulls the toolkit out from under the bench seat. Probably a clogged fuel line again. His fault for buying a used boat that sat for years and got crap in the fuel tank. But it was the best he could get, even with Worthy and him going halves. 

_ I know, it was sort of a ridiculous thing to do.  _ But he needs some escape from the smog and traffic and chaos of the city. It’s not like the wide open spaces of Texas at all. The closest he can get to those endless horizons is getting out on the ocean. And then for a while he can forget all the things that have happened. 

He pulls out a wrench and starts taking off the cover of the motor, so he can get to the spot where the fuel line curves and usually gets things stuck in it. And then the damn wrench slips out of his hand, spins out over the water, and drops with an almost cartoonishly perfect and mocking splash. Jack lets loose the whole litany of choice words he’s been wanting to scream all week as he watches it glitter as it sinks.  _ I guess this is why they say swearing like a sailor. _ He sits down hard on the bench seat.  _ Guess it’s time to break out the oars.  _

He looks out mournfully at the spot where his wrench sank one more time, and that’s when he sees it. Jack watches in shocked amazement as  _ something _ stirs the water.  _ What the hell? How big a fish is that to be lured by a flying wrench? _ He’s beginning to think he should just head back to shore  _ right now _ . The  _ Jaws _ theme is playing unnervingly in his head. 

A massive green, fluked tail flicks into the air, and then whatever it is is diving fast. Jack leans over the side of the boat to see, because despite the tail color, he thinks he saw peach and gold somewhere in the depths.  _ No way. _

Jack can’t say he’s never heard the stories. His old military buddy, Steve, would swear on a stack of Bibles that merfolk exist, that he’s not only seen them off the Hawaiian coast but actually met them, and that one saved his friend’s niece Kono when she fell off her surfboard in a competition and got knocked out. And there’s apparently family legend that somewhere in the McGarrett bloodline is merfolk blood, which would explain Steve’s uncanny performance in underwater training as a SEAL. 

Jack’s always believed in the impossible. Ghost stories, unexplained phenomena, he’s always felt that it’s something to be respected. Abuela Rosa’s tales of Mexican devils and ghosts always chilled him while they made his siblings laugh. Abuela, who wasn’t really his grandma but always felt like it, had always said he had the Sight, the gift for seeing more in the world than most people.

And then a very human hand comes up out of the water like the one in Riley’s book of fairy tales, but instead of a sword it’s holding Jack’s missing wrench. The wrench flies over the side of the boat, and then someone’s head breaks the surface, tossing long, dripping blond bangs out of their face. Jack can’t say this isn’t real, not when water from the kid shaking his head like a dog flies so far it splatters his own face. 

He expects the creature to disappear as quietly and quickly as it appeared. The Unseen Folk rarely show themselves to humans. Steve said merfolk are some of the most elusive of all; the only reason he’s been able to get close to any of them is that he basically spent his childhood in the ocean and they became familiar with him. 

But this kid (well, he looks like a teenager, Jack isn’t sure how ages work for merfolk) isn’t going anywhere. As a matter of fact he’s coming closer. And then with a rocking splash that Jack is afraid will capsize the whole boat, the kid arches up and hooks his arms over the edge, pulling himself up enough that he can look over the side. 

Jack’s staring over the side of the boat into wide blue eyes, and a very human face.  _ What the hell? _

“Did it break?” Jack almost falls out of the boat himself.  _ I didn’t know they’d speak at all, much less that I’d be able to understand him. _ He can only nod in response.

“Can I watch you fix it?” Jack nods again, slowly picking up the wrench. He passes the kid, who’s grinning now, pulling himself a little further up onto the edge of the boat. By all rights they should be tipping over, but it looks like the kid’s stabilizing them with his tail. 

Jack starts removing the housing from the outboard engine, more carefully this time, partly so the clearly curious kid can see what he’s doing, and partly because he doesn’t want him to have to play fetch with the wrench again. “Thanks...for getting my wrench back for me. But I thought...um...the merfolk stayed away from human stuff.”

“Some do. But there’s so much to  _ find _ in sunken ships. I know lots about humans.” The kid’s eyes are comically wide, watching every movement as Jack disassembles the engine. 

Jack notices something hanging around the kid’s neck from a loose chain.  _ Where’d he find a Swiss Army knife and why is he carrying it around? _

“I’m Jack, by the way,” he finally manages. 

“I’m Mac. Well, actually my name’s Angus, but I don’t like that.” He sounds like every five-year-old Jack has ever met, brutally honest without the fear of sounding stupid, open and trusting and curious and innocent. It’s a strange combination to see in a teenager. Or maybe that’s just because Jack is used to his own jaded, sarcastic, closed-off teen.  _ He’s absolutely nothing like Riley. _ And yet there’s something the same about them both, an indefinable something that Jack would say is them missing someone.  _ There’s a gap in his life, just like in hers. Probably a parent...if that’s how their world works... _ he realizes he doesn’t know and that’s not something you can just ask at a first meeting. 

The kid’s skin is covered with scars. So is his tail, there’s actually a small notch in the right fluke as well. _Okay, that just sounds_ _weird._ This whole time, Jack’s been kind of ignoring how freaky it is that he’s fixing his boat engine while being watched by a curious merman. 

“Aren’t you afraid someone’s going to come along and see you?”

“No one comes here. Except you.” Mac shrugs.  _ He’s not wrong. This area is actually terrible for fishing. I just go out with Worthy for the talking.  _ Someone Jack knew years ago, a retired Air Force colonel, told him “you don’t fish for  _ fish, _ you fish for  _ fishin’, _ ” and Jack’s always figured that’s one of the truest things he’s ever heard. 

“Why would you trust someone who comes out here and tries, on purpose, to catch the things you live with?” Jack has the sudden horrified thought that if Mac spends a lot of time around here, Jack might be responsible for some of those scars the kid’s sporting.  _ Have I ever hooked him by mistake? _

“What do you think we eat?” Mac shrugs.  _ I guess I expected seaweed? _

Jack makes a few final adjustments to the engine. “You should probably get back so you don’t get caught in the propellor.” Mac nods, and swims several feet away while Jack pulls the starter. When the engine engages, Jack turns the boat around. “Thanks for the help, kid.”

Mac looks slightly confused, but he smiles, and then disappears under the waves. Jack spends the rest of the trip home wondering if he’s gone crazy. 

_ Did that really just happen? Did I actually see a merman in the ocean, right here? _ There’s no way that just happened. But his engine is puttering away and the wrench is in the toolbox where it belongs. Jack wants to chalk this up to a case of heatstroke, but it’s too early in the day for that and besides, there’s an almost chilly breeze off the water. He shakes his head.  _ Well, it’ll probably never happen again. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't abandoned this one I promise! It's just some slow going in between all my other projects, so here's a little more I got done...

It takes three days before Jack ventures near the shore or the boat again. There are only two options, after what he experienced out there, but he’s not quite ready to face either possibility.  _ One, I imagined the whole thing, and that kid doesn’t even exist. _ That’s more painful than he’ll admit; some part of him  _ wants _ Mac to be real. If only so that Jack can convince himself he’s not absolutely losing it.

_ Two, that was all real, and there’s a merfolk colony outside our new house. _ There were rumors of things in the desert back in Texas, of a chupacabra preying on calves, but Jack never saw it. He’s never actually seen anything like that before, no matter what  _ Abuela _ Rosa said about him having the Sight. _ And if it’s all true… _

But when he does venture down in the evening after work, taking some tools to work on the motor and investigate that fuel line problem a little more, the sea is completely calm once again. There isn’t so much as a flash of an emerald tail. Jack doesn’t want to admit he’s disappointed. 

He’s taking apart the engine when he hears water splashing. He looks up slowly, glancing toward the bay out of the corner of his eye, just enough to see ripples and then something surfacing.  _ No way. _

Mac does that same head-shaking thing he did the last time, water flying, and slowly swims closer, stopping about twenty feet from shore where the bottom drops off and gets deep. Jack doesn’t even move, waiting like he did the time he was fixing the fence and the skittish mustang colt he bought as a slaughterhouse rescue came up and started sniffing his neck.

“It still doesn’t work?” Mac asks _. _

“No. And shh, you don’t want someone to hear you talking, kid.” Mac  _ flinches. _ Like what Jack just said was a physical blow. He cringes away from shore, the energy bleeding out of his body, and starts to slide back into the waves.  _ He’s going to disappear.  _ Jack doesn’t know what he did to scare the poor kid, but he doesn’t want Mac to run away scared, he’d feel awful about it. 

“Hey, I’m not mad, okay?” He tries to keep his voice quiet but reassuring. “I just don’t want other people to find you.” Mac stops, halfway submerged. His eyes are still wide and a little scared. “You can come watch me work if you want, I don’t mind. And ask questions all you want, just…” He was going to say ‘use your inside voice’ like he does to Riley, but he has the feeling Mac wouldn’t understand that. “Be really quiet.” 

Mac nods. His eyes are glued to Jack’s hands while he works, and when he speaks it’s barely a whisper, now.  _ He really freaked out when I said I didn’t want someone to hear him. _ Jack can’t help but wonder if the kid knows what the risks are if he’s caught.  _ Do mermaids teach their kids about stranger danger? _ But the odd thing is that Mac was totally confident talking to him yesterday. _ It was when I scolded him that he got spooked. _

Jack doesn’t like the unpleasant suspicion skittering around his head.  _ That’s a marker for an abusive situation.  _ Diane had an ex who hung around for a while when they were first dating, and Jack watched her cringe whenever that man raised his voice.  _ That’s what Mac looked like. _ He doesn’t really know how the Unseen run their societies, but if they’re anything like humans there’s got to be plenty of bad apples to go around. And from the looks of it, the kid’s spent time around one of them, if he’s not currently in a bad situation right now.  _ But there’s not really much I can do for him. He does seem happy here. _

He’s careful not to do anything that might set Mac off, and after a while the kid does relax, swimming closer and leaning up on some of the rocks to watch, swishing his tail lazily back and forth in the water and occasionally asking Jack random questions. 

When he’s done, the kid watches him expectantly for a few more minutes, until he seems to realize that Jack isn’t going to take anything else apart. He disappears back into the water with a flick of his tail and the smallest of ripples that spread out until they vanish. 

Jack sighs and leans back against the boat. No way was that a hallucination. Mac is definitely real, and Jack is more than likely the only one who knows. 

_ If I tell Riley, she’ll think I’m losing my mind. _ If he tells anyone, that’s what’s going to happen.  _ And besides, what if the wrong people find out about Mac? _ He trusts Riley, but anyone else might let the secret slip.  _ What would happen to Mac then? _ He has a horrific moment of imagining the kid captured, netted out of the water and dumped in a squalid little tank, trucked around the country on display or sent to some laboratory to be experimented on. The Unseen stay that way for good reason. 

He glances at his watch, then scrambles to his feet and rushes for the house. If he wants to keep Mac a secret, then he’s going to have to act like everything is normal.  _ How hard can that be? _

… 

“Dad, where have you been going?” Riley asks, shoveling another massive bite from her stack of pancakes into her mouth. Jack stops with his spatula halfway to the bowl, dripping tiny blobs of batter on the hissing grill.  _ Should have known this was coming, sooner or later. _ Riley’s woken up early a few too many times to an empty house.  _ Guess this morning was the last straw. _ “You disappear, for almost an hour sometimes, and you never tell me where you’re going or what you’re doing. You never used to keep secrets from me.”

Jack wants to counter that with the fact that Riley’s been keeping her share of secrets from  _ him _ these past few weeks _ , _ but that won’t help defuse the tension. Riley’s like a live bomb, and if he doesn’t do something soon, he might not survive the fallout.  _ She has no idea what I’m doing, and she’s probably scared. _

Jack was shocked when Mac showed up again after their last encounter. He was half afraid he’d scared the kid off. And he’s not sure if it’s his imagination or if Mac was sporting a few faded bruises.  _ Maybe he just collided with some rocks or something. _ But Jack can’t force himself to believe that. And almost every day after that, when Jack’s gone down to the shore by himself, Mac is there. He doesn’t come close when Jack and Riley go swimming or have bonfires, but Jack thought he saw the kid once in the firelight, hiding by the heap of rocks near the north end of the little cove.

He’s been trying to spend time with the kid because it’s obvious that Mac’s lonely, and Jack knows how badly things can end for lonely, abused human kids. But Riley is a very curious person, and Jack has no doubt that she’s going to get the answers she wants somehow. And he’d rather be the one to tell her himself, than have her sneaking around and stop trusting him when she learns what he’s really doing.  _ That could be even more dangerous than telling her the truth. _

… 

The next time he sees Mac, he tries to gauge the kid’s reaction to possibly bringing another person in on the secret.

“My daughter Riley is starting to wonder where I go when I’m talking to you.” Jack paces back and forth nervously. “Mac, I might have to tell her the truth. But I’m not going to do that unless you tell me that’s okay.” The kid gives him a truly comical confused look. “I mean, I won’t tell her anything if you don’t want me to do that. And I promise I won’t tell anyone else. Riley’s a good kid. She’s trustworthy, and she won’t tell anyone a secret.”  _ She’s a little too good at keeping some. _

“Your daughter?” Mac asks. “I saw her. She sits on the rocks when you’re gone and talks to her hand.”  _ Her phone. Kid’s probably never seen one, people don’t really take those down by the water.  _ “She looks sad.”

Jack bites his lip.  _ I’m lettin’ all these kids down. Mac is risking everything hanging around here because he wants someone to pay attention to him, and I don’t even know what Riley wants, if she wants me to spend more time with her, or give her space.  _ “Yeah, she’s got a lot of things on her mind right now.” 

“You can tell her.”  _ Damn. _ Jack’s barely known the kid two weeks, and already Mac trusts him enough to let Jack decide who should know there’s a mermaid out his back door.  _ Aw kid, you must be really naive. Or you just don’t care what happens to you. _ Jack’s pretty sure neither of those is a good option.  _ It’s a good thing I’m the one who found him. _

But the fact is, when it comes right down to it, he can’t make himself blurt anything out. When Riley gets back from her internship, he makes small talk, about her job, about her ocean research with the think tank, hoping to slowly steer the conversation around.  _ What if she thinks I’ve lost it? _ Part of him is hoping her research has turned up something, that those brainiacs she works with have found evidence of merpeople. But Riley keeps talking about currents and temperatures and chemical saturations, and never says anything about underwater civilizations of advanced beings. 

Jack keeps making more and more pointed suggestions, but he can’t force himself to just outright tell her that there’s a merman living outside their back door. Eventually, Riley can’t help but pick up on the weirdness. 

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” Jack sighs.  _ I’ve never been any good at talking to her about tough things. She knew Diane wasn’t going to make it before I even said a word.  _

“You’ve been acting weird for days. You’re not gonna lose your job, are you? Do we have to move again?” Riley sounds both disappointed and resigned. 

“No, no, nothing like that. We’re fine, I promise.” Jack doesn’t want to move either.  _ What if someone else rented this place and found Mac?  _ And then he wonders if the owner knew. Because when he drove to the nursing home she’s moved into now to sign the rental contract, she’d looked up at him in a way that reminded him of Abuela and said, “I won’t let just anyone rent that place, young man. I’ve made sure I kept it out of the hands of those land-grubbing developers all these years. But you’re good people, I could tell the minute I saw you.”  _ She probably has the Sight too. Maybe merfolk have lived here a long time, and she’s been protecting them from anyone else.  _ At the time he hadn’t thought too much about it, but really she could have gotten thousands of dollars for California beachfront property like this.  _ And she’s renting it to me for a song. Why didn’t I think that was weird? _

“I can’t...I can’t tell you, not in here. I have to show you something first.” Mac should be hanging around the beach again; Jack usually goes down to work on the boat while Riley hides in her room with her laptop.  _ He seems pretty desperate for the company; _ the kid always looks heartbroken when Jack has to leave.  _ Where does he live? Does he have family at all? _

“Dad?” Riley scrambles down to the beach, probably putting even more holes in her jeans. “What did you call me down here for?”

“Come here. You gotta see this.”  

“What?” Riley asks. The water is eerily still. _Oh really kid? Now you start being a jerk and making me look like an idiot in front of my daughter?_ “Dad, if you really pulled me down here to watch a _sunset_ and say something cheesy about life and stuff…” She sighs. “I know you’re trying to make me feel better. It’s okay, you don’t have to. We’re gonna be okay. We’re the Daltons, right?” Jack nods. “And if you’re gonna try and start some cringey dad talk I’m just gonna leave now. Billy is just a friend, and I have no intention of getting serious about anyone until I get my degree. I don’t need a talk.” _Wait, Billy?_ _What’s going on with her and that Colton boy?_

Jack’s starting to feel like he’s missed some key developments here. And then Riley yelps, glancing at the water, which has started to churn and bubble. Mac surfaces a few feet away, waving one hand  _ and _ his tail fin. 

Riley starts to laugh. “Nice try, dad. That’s one of your less than stellar ideas, hire some kid from school to show up and pretend to be a fantasy creature. I think I’m a little old for mermaids.” Riley sniffs. “Seriously, did you actually ask that Bozer kid to do prosthetics? Those are actually pretty good, but I thought his weren’t waterproof yet.” And then Mac decides to be a show-off and flips into the air, clearly displaying the full and very real tail.

Riley doesn’t scream. It’s more like a strangled, spluttering yodel, to be precise. She stumbles backwards, crashing onto her butt in the sand and gasping. “Dad, Dad, what’s going on?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another teaser...I really wanted to have this fic finished by now, but for some reason it's proving more difficult to write than I expected. Nevertheless, it should be updated soon and hopefully finished soon as well! I decided to go ahead and post the first chapter before MerMay was over...


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